An adventuring group breaks into the underground lair of a local thieves guild. While searching around the underground complex for a villainous rogue that tried to kill the party, the PCs stumble across a room of 7 sleeping humans, likely members of the guild. One PC wants to steal the sleeping humans' weapons and close the door. Another PC wants to quietly kill them all in their sleep.
Question: In this scenario, is killing the sleeping humans an evil act? I'm curious what other players/ DMs think about this. Alignment is often difficult to pinpoint because it is so subjective and situational. Any thoughts would be helpful.
Depends how villainous and evil the guild members are. I'd be inclined to put 'refuse to kill unconscious enemies' as under 'personal code' than 'alignment-determining act'.
Depends how villainous and evil the guild members are. I'd be inclined to put 'refuse to kill unconscious enemies' as under 'personal code' than 'alignment-determining act'.
That is a good question about the disposition of the guild. The PCs really know nothing about the guild. All they know is that their leader tried to leave the PCs for dead by sealing them in an underground tomb. It was also suggested that the leader is not a nice guy. He has allegedly stolen his family fortune from his sister and apologetically slapped her in the face. Furthermore, it seems that the leader killed another person by leaving them for dead in the same tomb that was used to trap the PCs.
Given the information they have, it's not evil but it's definitely chaotic. Stealing their weapons is also chaotic, but a lot less so.
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@Dorkis
When you look at a character, there are two different kinds of alignments at work.
One is the alignment of a character.
The other is the alignment of a character's actions.
The alignment of a character is their philosophical values. It's the notions that guide their life and shape their opinion of right and wrong, what they consider ethical, and so on. The alignment of a character is very malleable, very flexible, in order to permit the players to create a wide mixture of characters. You can add alot of interesting angles on a character, without the game straightjacketing you into a certain alignment. This is what permits you to make a Shining Knight-type character, who is LG, but also offer no quarter. Or a simple, boring merchant, who is CE because he believes in anarchy, and is a terrible murderous racist, but he lacks the conviction to act on his beliefs, preferring instead to live his life, acting like polite society expects him to.
The alignment of a character is flexible, because it allows more freedom to create different characters, than if it was not.
And then there's the alignment of a character's actions. These are the exact opposite. They're simple, they're precisely defined, and they're not flexible. "Is my character's action good or evil? Lawful or chaotic? Neutral?" consult the Additional Rules chapter on alignment - good vs evil, law vs chaos sections. Link provided.
The reason the alignment of an action is very inflexible, is probably because there are classes in the game who have very hard-and-fast interactions with alignment. A person playing a paladin for instance, may want to ask his gamemaster "is Sir Gawain committing an evil act by <insert example here>", or "Would this be a good act?". In such a case, the GM needs to be able to provide a clear and unbiased answer, based on a baseline for what the game, not he, considers good, evil, lawful, chaotic and neutral.
Hope this helps you, and hope it helps in future decisions about alignment. Remember, it is not forbidden, or even discouraged for a good aligned fighter, to commit evil acts. In fact, classic adventurer-behavior is riddled with all sorts of aligned actions. Having these decisions change a person's alignment however, is a decision exclusively in the hands of the GM, and is not part of the core assumption of the game. Consult the same link and look in the "changing alignment"-section, for more detail.
Now, because you also asked what other players/GMs think about the alignment of killing the sleeping people in this example, I'll chime in.
Yes, it is evil. Plain and simple. That does not mean every player around the table should hang their heads in shame, just wipe off the swords on their pajamas and move on - life is tough. You don't know if these guys would have escaped - they could have... and boxed you in... they might at least. Not taking chances could have saved you, or saved someone else... could. It is still evil, you're killing people, people who are of no immediate, only potential, threat, and you're doing so without offering surrender or any other out. You can't even claim to be protecting anyone, as nobody is in danger of these sleeping men. If they woke up, took out their weapons and attacked, then you'd be defending yourself, which is neutral.
Nazgûl'ing these people would be evil.
Again, hope it helps =]
-Nearyn
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Alignment questions on the forums are always difficult because most of the times you don’t have all the information needed to fully understand the situation. The situation presented here is a perfect example. The only hard information we have on the rogue is he slapped his sister in the face. There are also a couple of rumors of crimes he may have committed but no prof. He also attempted to kill the party but no reason was given. Was the party beating up members of his guild? If so why were they doing it? Where they protection someone the guild was targeting, or were they rival? Is the party part of the city watch or other legitimate authority?
We also have no clue as to what type of guild we are dealing with. Is it an assassin’s guild or a thief’s guild, or maybe even a merchant’s guild? If it is an assassins guild than you can probably safely assume that the members are evil. If it is a thief’s guild many of the members may not be outright evil. Just because its leader is evil does not mean all of its members are.
Working with the information we have I would say stealing the weapons is probably not evil. Killing them in their sleep on the other hand would more than likely be evil. Killing an extremely evil person is not necessarily an evil act. Killing in self-defense is perfectly justifiable to any alignment including lawful good. Killing people on a suspicion that they may be allied to a suspected villain is over the line.
Using the fact that the rogue may have killed someone in the past as proof he is evil simply does not cut it. For one thing while the rogue may have killed someone that does not mean the other guild members have. If the rogue killing someone makes him evil what does the party’s killing 7 people make them? What if one of the 7 us a hostage or is being held against their will?
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I agree with Nearyn. Killing sleeping, and thus harmless, people is evil. If you're concerned with alignment changes, though, I'd say it would take a pattern of such behavior to change an alignment towards evil... though a paladin would still have trouble justifying such a cowardly act to his/her god.
Tangent: I also don't equate chaotic behavior with evil behavior. Chaotic people simply value individual choice above abstract values such as "the greater good," while Lawful people believe that life is improved by placing your trust in laws that govern behavior, to the benefit of all who live by them.
People who play Chaotic Neutral characters as necessarily crazy/evil/downright stupid/disruptive drive me nuts. Especially evil. To me, evil is selfishness taken to an extreme. The sort of behavior that says, "my pleasure/convenience is more important than your pain/distress/life." Like the convenience of killing people in their sleep, rather than making sure they're actually foes first. /tangent
@Nearyn the big issue is that what each GM thinks "the game" baseline greatly varies since every single situation possible isnt written down in the books.
In this case , i will second mysterious stranger and say it greatly depends on other factors.
To me taking them down during their sleep isnt evil really , an adventurer kills people , that is it , i dont see the diference in if they are awake or not. You killed them one way or another. What matters most to me is who exactly they are killing and how.
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@Nox Aeterna: The game can't possibly account for every possible situation, quite right. However the game does provide a clear frame to avoid bias, and it works quite acceptably if you play it as written.
The link I provided in my first post has all the info from the relevant chapter of the core rulebook, but here's the piece about what makes something evil, or good.
Good Versus Evil
Good characters and creatures protect innocent life. Evil characters and creatures debase or destroy innocent life, whether for fun or profit.
Good implies altruism, respect for life, and a concern for the dignity of sentient beings. Good characters make personal sacrifices to help others.
Evil implies hurting, oppressing, and killing others. Some evil creatures simply have no compassion for others and kill without qualms if doing so is convenient. Others actively pursue evil, killing for sport or out of duty to some evil deity or master.
People who are neutral with respect to good and evil have compunctions against killing the innocent, but may lack the commitment to make sacrifices to protect or help others.
So while, as you so correctly stated, the book cannot, and indeed does not, attempt to account for situations, it lays out which acts are good and which are evil.
- Protecting innocent life
- Acting altruistically
- Acting in a way that shows respect for life
- Acting in a way that shows concern for the dignity of sentient beings
- Acting in a way that makes personal sacrifice to help others
In a vacuum, if you're doing any of those things, you're doing something good. Usually you're not doing these things in a vacuum though.
Example: You're putting the orc encampment to the sword to protect the villagers who have been raided these orcs.
In this case your actions are killing, which we can see the rules say very clearly is evil, but you're doing it to protect innocent life, which the rules equally clearly says is good. What we wind up with is an evilgood action. That sounds like neutral to me =]
Very little GM adjudication is necessary in these situations if sticking to the rules in the aforementioned chapter. Naturally there can be corner-cases. Rare are the arbitrary game-rules that cannot be made to look ridiculous in the right circumstances. That's just the way the cookie crumbles.
Hope this was informative.
-Nearyn
@Nearyn
Yeap , pretty much how i see it , killing is evil on itself , the guy could be sleeping or fighting , it doesnt matter at all.
In this case , it does appear the PCs are doing an evil act , but if they knew this was a guild of evil assassins for example , then killing them all in their sleep wouldnt be evil at all.
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Killing anyone in their sleep is evil....in my book.
Killing people based on an assumption of who they likely are...is also evil in my book.
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The fact of the matter is that it doesn't sound like the PC's have enough information to decide whether or not it's an evil act. Evil lies in the motivations of the individual. All the PC knows is that there are 7 sleeping guild members, and the head of the guild is a bad person. Sure, maybe some of the sleepers are bad people. Maybe some of the sleepers were coerced into joining the guild. Maybe some sleepers are actively working to change it from within. Given your phrasing, it doesn't even sound like the PCs know for sure that these are members of the guild.
Fact of the matter is that the sleepers present no clear and immediate danger. That makes killing them evil. If the sleepers were tied up and awake and the party decided to kill them, that would be evil, also, because they are killing defenseless people.
The law has a word for people who kill other people who are not presenting an immediate threat to themselves or an innocent party: murder.
I'll have to agree that killing them in their sleep, with no other info to suggest they're an immediate threat, is evil.
Stealing their weapons? Well, that can be spun lots of ways, from 'mine mine money mine' to 'disarming a foe to help ensure peace', and probably other stuff. Finding some way to bind them without their waking (or even with if it's good enough) wouldn't be evil in and of itself, unless someone took undue advantage. But using your Mister Sandman perk is not going to net you any points for Good.
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There's an entire book dedicated to helping players with just these kinds of situations.
I purchased that book and it is useful in reinforcing the existing rules on alignment. It is not, however, a detailed glimpse into the intricacies of the alignment debate I though it would be (it does give some good example of what is good/evil and how the different alignments might react to a certain situation). Still worth it based on the functional alignment table/point system. The book has the 9 alignment on a grid based system (+/- 15 point grid). It works off of reinforcing you alignment (ie, +Law) or weakening it (-Law). Weakening an alignment can't actively change your alignment but reinforcing it can shift you to another.
While the book doesn't give an exact answer to this specific problem, it has three very similar situations that could be used to weigh the evilness of the act. Yes, the act of slaying helpless, potential threats is considered evil by this book.
Assuming your characters are Good, at worst you are looking at Murder (+10 Evil). At least, Assassination (+3 Evil). Middle option would be Killing Captives (+5 Evil). If you are Neutral, it changes to +5, +0, +3 respectively. If you are Evil, it merely service to reinforce your alignment.
On topic: I'd have just suggested using a Sap (or other non-lethal damage) to bludgeoning them into unconsciousness and tying them up. They are helpless and you don't have to worry about pesky alignment arguments.
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Murder is bad.
Not all killing is murder, but I am having hard time figuring out anytime killing people in their sleep without some sort of legal authority wouldn't be murder.
Sometimes evil might be the least bad option, or something a generally good person would choose to do because of external circumstances, and that might in some way mitigate doing a bad thing, but what is described is definitely evil.
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This is evil. Evil, evil, evil. And unlawful, too (though arguably could be chaotic or neutral).
Murder. Definitely evil. By game definitions and by dictionary definitions.
Taking away their ability to attack you is a peaceful and non-evil solution that respects life. Capturing them and taking them to authorities is a lawful solution, and also a good one since it respects life. A fairly neutral solution would be to wake them up and then fight them, though doing that deliberately to circumvent the "murder" label still sounds like murder to me, but it's getting grayer.
I normally don't post in alignment threads, but in this case, I'm so surprised that most people are saying this is evil that I have to pipe up. Cause being the devil's advocate is fun.
I'd like to introduce everyone to my good friend Damerrich, the Lawful Good empyreal lord of executions, responsibility, and judiciousness. What is an execution? Killing a condemned, guilty prisoner, who is presumably helpless. What were the 7 NPCs in the OP's example? People sleeping in a thieves' guild with weapons. What sort of people would sleep in a thieves' guild with weapons? It's reasonable to assume, thieves. Bad people who do bad things to innocent people.
My good buddy Damerrich would pat those PCs on the back for their judicious action. 50 points to Gryffindor and the forces of Lawful Good. If you really wanna split hairs, then perhaps the PCs should tie them up, wake them up, and prove beyond a shadow of a reasonable doubt that the NPCs are bad guys before lopping their heads off.
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I normally don't post on alignment threads, but in this case, I'm so surprised that most people are saying this is evil that I have to pipe up. Cause being the devil's advocate is fun.
I'd like to introduce everyone to my good friend Damerrich, the Lawful Good empyreal lord of executions, responsibility, and judiciousness. What is an execution? Killing a condemned, guilty prisoner, who is presumably helpless. What were the 7 NPCs in the OP's example? People sleeping in a thieves' guild with weapons. What sort of people would sleep in a thieves' guild with weapons? It's reasonable to assume, thieves. Bad people who do bad things to innocent people.
My good buddy Damerrich would pat those PCs on the back for their judicious action. 50 points for Gryffindor and the forces of Lawful Good. If you really wanna split hairs, then perhaps the PCs should tie them up, wake them up, and prove beyond a shadow of a reasonable doubt that the NPCs are bad guys before lopping their heads off.
Nah, not even close.
You said it yourself:
the Lawful Good empyreal lord of executions, responsibility, and judiciousness. What is an execution? Killing a condemned, guilty prisoner
It's not the "helplessness" of these sleeping goons that makes this an evil act of murder. It's the murdering that makes it an evil act of murder. What is a murder? Killing a person without due process of law.
Killing those people without legal authority and right to do so is murder. Murder is evil by dictionary definition and game terminology for the reason of lack of regard for life (specifically for maliciously and unnecessarily terminating multiple lives). It's also unlawful but the OP seemed less concerned about that.
Your "friend" the executioner has legal authority to kill condemned prisoners. Some members of the ACLU argue that this is still "state-sanctioned murder" but I don't want to quibble about the legality or morality of the death penalty. I'll just say that it's clearly legal (where it's used by law) and at least some people consider it a "good" thing. Clearly Damerrich does. I'm OK with that.
But his legally authorized execution of condemned criminals is entirely different than murdering sleeping people with no trial, no evidence, no defense, no legal authorization. Just because they're thieves does not mean they deserve the death penalty - that's for courts and lawyers and judges and juries to decide. Not adventurers.
Now, show me a society who employs adventurers to act as "judge, jury, and executioner" and authorizes them with a license (and responsibility) to kill with extreme prejudice and state sanction, and I'll allow that this is now legal and might not even be considered evil, thought that last bit is still debatable.
DM_Blake, I think you're mixing up Lawful and Good to the point where they're effectively the same thing by your definitions. If breaking the law is automatically evil, it kinda kills the whole alignment system. Or at least moves it to the 4E paradigm where Lawful and Chaotic are just superlatives attached to the Good and Evil alignments.
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I'm not mixing them up at all.
Note that I said (repeatedly) "Murder is evil by dictionary definition and game terminology for the reason of lack of regard for life". That's right there in the Pathfinder definition of good/evil.
I mentioned that murdering people is both evil and unlawful. By mentioning both but with the "and" conjunction I'm specifically indicating that these are two separate things, but this one act of murdering a bunch of sleeping thugs happens to be both, by just about all definitions (though as I mentioned I can imagine situations where an adventurer might have lawful authority to dispense vigilante justice, even summary justice).
I suppose there might even be a kingdom where the law reads "It's OK to murder people in their homes or places of work so long as they are known affiliates of criminal organizations, and no warrant, trial, conviction, or judgment is necessary to cut them down." I doubt it, but in such a kingdom, the PCs could murder these thugs and it would be lawful. Heck, even if a PC defines his moral code of "Lawful" to that extent and carries out vigilante justice in this fashion, he could be argued to be following his lawful alignment while almost certainly breaking the laws of the land.
All of that lawful stuff is debatable and potentially situational (though none of it was mentioned by the OP so the default assumption that committing this murder breaks the laws of the land should probably prevail).
The fact remains that cold-blooded murder of sleeping people in their own beds without any regard for their life is evil. This is indisputable by Pathfinder terms.
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Killing helpless/sleeping people is an evil and dishonorable thing to do. Circumstances might make it forgivable. But a good party, especially a party with Paladins and Cavaliers, has something to feel sorry for, perhaps even atone for, maybe even Atone for.
I agree. They could knock them out of combat with non-lethal damage and that would also be a win.
We've all heard the stories of the thief with a heart of gold, right? Old and new, these stories are all over the place. So what if these are good thieves?
Let's say this is a group of thieves, raised on the mean streets of whatever. They join the thieves guild so that they can feed themselves and their little sisters. They even branch out to giving the money they steal from the fat merchants and rich nobility to people about to get evicted, or with sick children, or who are otherwise poor and downtrodden.
They notice the leader of the guild is a bad dude. They even heard that he left people to die in a tomb! So they come up with a plan. They are going to rise through the ranks of the guild, and at the same time gather incriminating evidence on the guild leader. When they are ready, they will turn the evidence over to the city watch. That way the guild leader will be apprehended by the authorities and they can continue robbing from the rich to give to the poor.
And it works! They gather all the evidence they need to put the bad guild leader behind bars, and tomorrow they will be turning it all over to a good hearted and trustworthy member of the watch. Afterwords they plan on celebrating by donating money to the temple of Cayden Cailean and various soup kitchens around the city. Tomorrow will be a big day! So they turn in early.
That night, adventurers break in and kill them all in their sleep.
Was it an evil act for the adventurers to do that?
The point of this story is that the adventurers don't KNOW that these people are a threat to them, and in fact don't know anything about the sleeping people. They could be allies, they could be assassins, they could be angels taken mortal form to save the world. But if they kill them in their sleep, they are deciding that even the possibility that these people could cause them trouble is more important than the possibility that they are innocent, and thus they have to die. That's it's ok to kill the possibly innocent.
And thinking that it's ok to kill innocent people for expediency sake is definitely evil.
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And thinking that it's ok to kill innocent people for expediency sake is definitely evil.
It's also evil to kill non-innocent people for expediency sake. Murder is murder.
Killing people (innocent or otherwise) for self-defense, or for war, or for state-sanctioned executions, might be plausible as a non-evil act. Killing them for expediency never is.
And thinking that it's ok to kill innocent people for expediency sake is definitely evil.It's also evil to kill non-innocent people for expediency sake. Murder is murder.
Killing people (innocent or otherwise) for self-defense, or for war, or for state-sanctioned executions, might be plausible as a non-evil act. Killing them for expediency never is.
I happen to agree with you, but in these threads there's always (at least) one who will argue murdering someone non-innocent for expedience sake isn't evil. But arguing that's it's ok to kill the innocent just because it's expedient is much harder.
The problem tends to be where one draws the line on expediency versus necessity. Some would say "Kill the sleeping guards so they can't raise an alarm, attack us later, etc" is wrong, others would say its tactically necessary. Alignment is not a suicide pact, and even good-aligned adventurers leave behind a trail of corpses. There's a reason that the Paladin—the iconic good guy—gets smiting as his main power, not friendship hugs.
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+1 to DM_Blake. Speak the truth for all to hear!
There's a reason that the Paladin—the iconic good guy—gets smiting as his main power, not friendship hugs.
Yep. You give the smiting powers to the guy that you know will use them correctly, with a built in safety in case he decides to misuse them. Running from Evil doesn't work. Confronting it and ending it is the ultimate solution except ... Good likes to be merciful and forgiving.
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Obviously you just clock them all in the head repeatedly until they have too much non-lethal damage to wake up on their own.
I think taking their weapons would be reasonable. You make them far less a threat if they awaken, and if they turn out to be alright later, you can easily hand their stuff back to them.
Killing them while they're asleep, without knowing anything else of them (i.e. if they're part of the guild, if some were forced to be in the guild, etc...) is probably an evil act. For all they know, they could be well robed, squatters / hobos that found a nice place to take a nap.
Obviously you just clock them all in the head repeatedly until they have too much non-lethal damage to wake up on their own.
Not a good idea:
If a creature's nonlethal damage is equal to his total maximum hit points (not his current hit points), all further nonlethal damage is treated as lethal damage. This does not apply to creatures with regeneration. Such creatures simply accrue additional nonlethal damage, increasing the amount of time they remain unconscious.
You would end up beating them to death. Literally.
The problem tends to be where one draws the line on expediency versus necessity. Some would say "Kill the sleeping guards so they can't raise an alarm, attack us later, etc" is wrong, others would say its tactically necessary. Alignment is not a suicide pact, and even good-aligned adventurers leave behind a trail of corpses. There's a reason that the Paladin—the iconic good guy—gets smiting as his main power, not friendship hugs.I totally want to see a sort of Paladin or Monk archetype that gets friendship hugs instead of smites and punches.
That's what the Tetori is, obviously.
The Tetori Monk has a lot of friendship for everyone.
Obviously you just clock them all in the head repeatedly until they have too much non-lethal damage to wake up on their own.Not a good idea:
If a creature's nonlethal damage is equal to his total maximum hit points (not his current hit points), all further nonlethal damage is treated as lethal damage. This does not apply to creatures with regeneration. Such creatures simply accrue additional nonlethal damage, increasing the amount of time they remain unconscious.You would end up beating them to death. Literally.
Not quite. You seem to have overlooked this part:
When your nonlethal damage exceeds your current hit points, you fall unconscious. While unconscious, you are helpless.
So, if those guys have 15 HP and you do 16 HP of Non-lethal Damage, they are unconscious and helpless. If you continue to do more Non-lethal Damage, then your quote begins to apply and you could beat them to death - but you don't have to go that far; just stop when they're unconscious.
So, if those guys have 15 HP and you do 16 HP of Non-lethal Damage, they are unconscious and helpless. If you continue to do more Non-lethal Damage, then your quote begins to apply and you could beat them to death - but you don't have to go that far; just stop when they're unconscious.
Oh, I know you can bludgeon them into unconsciousness just fine. I was responding to this specifically:
Obviously you just clock them all in the head repeatedly until they have too much non-lethal damage to wake up on their own.
Unless those guys have regeneration, never waking up from non-lethal damage means they're dead.
So, if those guys have 15 HP and you do 16 HP of Non-lethal Damage, they are unconscious and helpless. If you continue to do more Non-lethal Damage, then your quote begins to apply and you could beat them to death - but you don't have to go that far; just stop when they're unconscious.Oh, I know you can bludgeon them into unconsciousness just fine. I was responding to this specifically:
Obviously you just clock them all in the head repeatedly until they have too much non-lethal damage to wake up on their own.Unless those guys have regeneration, never waking up from non-lethal damage means they're dead.
Ahhh, I see. Your post confused me and I thought it might confuse other people so I made sure the appropriate rule was quoted here next to your post.
As for "too much non-lethal damage to wake up on their own", I can see where you assume there's a "never" in there; it certainly seems implied, but I don't think Arachnofiend meant "never wake up on their own". Probably just meant "won't wake up on their own until you're long gone and don't care what they do."
That is, in fact what I meant. Kinda defeats the purpose of using non-lethal in the first place if you're just going to kill them anyways.
...I say, even though I'm currently playing a Thug Rogue who knocks people unconscious with her sap and then finishes them off with a masterwork ritual dagger and a whispered prayer to Pharasma.
I'd say killing them is kind if a personal moral act. It's not really something to affect one's alignment. Now, if they're a paladin or cleric, then this is up to the doctrines of their deity. Some good gods condone this kind of "For the greater good" act, some don't.
I'd say killing them is kind if a personal moral act. It's not really something to affect one's alignment. Now, if they're a paladin or cleric, then this is up to the doctrines of their deity. Some good gods condone this kind of "For the greater good" act, some don't.
Morality is not up to individuals. If it worked that way in our world, you could come home one night and find a guy in your house murdering your family in their sleep.
"What are you doing?" you scream.
"Oh, nothing," he replies. "I'm just making a personal moral act. Don't mind me."
I'm pretty sure EVERYBODY (except those who are ACTUALLY criminally insane) would agree that this scenario is not how things work anywhere in the real world.
Assuming it works that way in Golarion or any other game world is also incorrect. Sure, there might even be oddball countries where a guy could commit murder like this and the government wouldn't do anything about it, but that guy is still evil and that country is also evil for condoning this kind of evil behavior - at no point in the Patfinder rules could that murderer actually say "I'm a good guy and I did it for the greater good."
Well, he could say that, and he could be crazy enough to believe it, but it wouldn't be true. By Earthly laws or by Pathfinder definitions of alignment.
The problem tends to be where one draws the line on expediency versus necessity. Some would say "Kill the sleeping guards so they can't raise an alarm, attack us later, etc" is wrong, others would say its tactically necessary. Alignment is not a suicide pact, and even good-aligned adventurers leave behind a trail of corpses. There's a reason that the Paladin—the iconic good guy—gets smiting as his main power, not friendship hugs.
This argument comes up a lot when alignment is getting discussed.
The problem is that, ultimately, one can attempt to justify anything - I'd recommend The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks, as a good example of such. The point of the alignment mechanic is, in fact, not to be subjective, but to be as objective a mechanic as it can be (which isn't easy) about which alignment-based effects can work.
Killing people is usually Evil, unless it is literally the only course of action short of suicide - whereupon as there is no choice involved, it instead becomes Neutral. You didn't choose to fight/kill. If there is a choice, however, then choosing to kill is probably going to be an Evil act. As others have said, this doesn't mandate an alignment change unless it becomes a pattern of behavior - sometimes you just can't afford to be the nice guy.
In the case of the OP; The PCs are presented with a scenario where they are in hostile territory and encounter some sleeping people, whom they know little about except they're almost certainly criminals and guilty of at least petty theft.
- Good Option 1: Close the door, jam the lock, keep sneaking on and try your luck. This is higher risk to you, but ultimately you know little about them or what they will do, so it is reasonable to feel bad about beating them up while sleeping.
Good Option 2: Surround them, hold blades to their throats and wake them quietly, demanding their immediate surrender. This gives them the option of surrender (whereupon you can show mercy) or fighting. Again, risky, but the morale high ground.
Neutral Option: Bludgeon them unconscious in their sleep. You don't know them, and you don't want to. But you're choosing not to kill them in their sleep, merely make sure they're not a problem for you.
Evil Option: Kill them in their sleep. You don't know them, but they might be a threat... so too bad for them, they're gonna die.
You can attempt to justify the above, but that doesn't make an evil act non-evil, it just explains why a non-evil person might do it.
An adventuring group breaks into the underground lair of a local thieves guild. While searching around the underground complex for a villainous rogue that tried to kill the party, the PCs stumble across a room of 7 sleeping humans, likely members of the guild. One PC wants to steal the sleeping humans' weapons and close the door. Another PC wants to quietly kill them all in their sleep.
Question: In this scenario, is killing the sleeping humans an evil act? I'm curious what other players/ DMs think about this. Alignment is often difficult to pinpoint because it is so subjective and situational. Any thoughts would be helpful.
Answer: Evil
To paraphrase a group of bounty hunters breaks into the local chapter of the Hells Angels, looking for a fugitive known to associate with the group. They see several people asleep after a party as well as a selection of knives and baseball bats in the room. Would it be wrong for the bounty hunters to murder the sleeping partiers to prevent them from waking and raising the alarm?
To make a further point: Good aligned characters can commit evil acts and remain good aligned, however they will generally show remorse for doing so as a symptom of having a conscience (a trait generally associated with a good alignment).
Characters who frequently try to justify their less altruistic actions are not behaving in a Good aligned fashion. Attempting to justify an evil act to oneself instead of facing the reality that what was done was wrong and having it weigh on the conscience is actually acting in accordance with an Evil alignment, and should constitute a slide downwards on the alignment chart.
A common misconception is that evil aligned characters wake up no a morning and go "What Evil thing can I do do today!?"... they don't. Evil creatures and people always feel they are doing the right thing - they are Evil because they do not believe it is wrong to murder people and take their stuff in the night.
The classic issue here is that doing certain stuff makes you evil. You still do them. You don't want to become evil, so you try to justify it. You claim that only someone who does things for expressly evil reasons are evil, everyone else is neutral at worst. Expediency should never get someone evil, right? Right? Killing the guy was necessary, he had stolen your purse and was a threat to you. Torturing the elves was necessary, they knew where the sacred thingy you needed to defeat the bad guy was. Killing the angel was necessary, it attacked you with very little provocation, all you did was threaten to set fire to the orphanage unless they gave you more money so you could get a new magic weapon to use against the bad guy. Etc etc etc. Some people never understand this, and seem to think all villains have to have a goatee and say bwahahahahaaa.
This is evil. Evil, evil, evil. And unlawful, too (though arguably could be chaotic or neutral).
Murder. Definitely evil. By game definitions and by dictionary definitions.
Taking away their ability to attack you is a peaceful and non-evil solution that respects life. Capturing them and taking them to authorities is a lawful solution, and also a good one since it respects life. A fairly neutral solution would be to wake them up and then fight them, though doing that deliberately to circumvent the "murder" label still sounds like murder to me, but it's getting grayer.
Where does it say that murder is evil?
Seriously, I can't find it. This kind of matters.
Here is a dictionary definition for murder:
The crime of unlawfully killing a person especially with malice aforethought
Nothing in that quote suggests evil beyond what is typically associated with deliberately ending the life of a sentient being. It does suggest that murder is a chaotic act, but Law isn't Good.
To pick a couple of extreme examples, herding Jews into the gas chambers isn't murder, but is about as Evil as it gets. On the other hand, clubbing an SS officer over the back of the head to save a Jewish family from the gas chambers is a pretty clear cut example of protecting the innocent (something done by Good creatures), but is undeniably premeditated and unlawful killing in the eyes of the (Nazi controlled) Law. On the basis of examples like this, I find it hard to agree with the statement that Murder=Evil.
On the topic of the actual OP, I realize that there are a couple of crucial facts missing.
1. How bad is this Thieves' Guild? Is it mostly just a pack of lowly pickpockets, or are the Guild members murderers and rapists?
2. How much of a threat to the party's lives are these members?
3. How does the governing legal body view this Guild?
I am going to answer the OP's question twice, with two different sets of assumptions.
First off, lets assume that the Thieves' Guild is known to be filled with dangerous murderers who are a threat to the party's lives (read - they are level appropriate). Lets assume that the governing legal body is aware of this guild, wants it's members captured so that they can be made an example of and executed for being members of an illegal organization whose sole prerogative is to aid in committing heinous and immoral crimes. In this extreme case, I find it hard to declare that the PCs are acting immorally if they slit the throats of the criminals there and then.
By being a member of this guild and actively participating in it's activities, the sleeping thieves are willfully helping to do Evil. Given that these men have knowingly decided to become involved in crimes like murdering or kidnapping innocents, redeeming them is unlikely even in the best of circumstances. During what is essentially a commando raid in enemy territory, it's close to impossible. Handing them over to the Law is just another way of killing them, so it isn't really much different from killing them immediately. There is another option, which is to leave them in their sleep (possibly disarming them for good measure) and allow them to continue to commit Evil in the future. The whole thing becomes a judgement call as to whether the risk of leaving them alive and unharmed endangers the Good the PC's mission will bring enough to not protect the innocent by killing people working for an organization of Evil murderers. It also becomes a judgement call between whether or not the benefits of taking them back to the authorities outweight the risks involved with trying to take them alive instead of murdering them in their sleep*. There isn't any clear Good(er) or Evil option. It's all a matter of what the PCs personally think is better, based on their alignment along the Law-Chaos spectrum, and their personal views.
If we don't use such an extreme set of assumptions, and the sleeping thieves are just lowly pickpockets in a small group that calls itself "The Thieves Guild" for posterity purposes, then a nigh-unkillable team of magical quasi-special forces wandering in and slitting their throats for minor convenience would probably qualify as Evil.
*It's probably still murder by slitting their throats in their sleep, even if a legally sanctioned trial is basically a mere formality because the conviction and execution of the criminals is near-certain. Also, the party could wake the criminals up before fighting them too, if you happen to view giving someone a few moments of disorientated terror before getting run through by a huge sword and bleeding out on the cold stone floor as better than killing them in their sleep.
The classic issue here is that doing certain stuff makes you evil. You still do them. You don't want to become evil, so you try to justify it. You claim that only someone who does things for expressly evil reasons are evil, everyone else is neutral at worst. Expediency should never get someone evil, right? Right? Killing the guy was necessary, he had stolen your purse and was a threat to you. Torturing the elves was necessary, they knew where the sacred thingy you needed to defeat the bad guy was. Killing the angel was necessary, it attacked you with very little provocation, all you did was threaten to set fire to the orphanage unless they gave you more money so you could get a new magic weapon to use against the bad guy. Etc etc etc. Some people never understand this, and seem to think all villains have to have a goatee and say bwahahahahaaa.
It's worth noting that this line of thought doesn't actually help distinguish Good from Evil. All it shows is that a person's internal view of their actions isn't very useful for determining whether or not their actions are wrong. You need external metrics. Which is what the Alignment system provides (or tries to).
I normally don't post in alignment threads, but in this case, I'm so surprised that most people are saying this is evil that I have to pipe up. Cause being the devil's advocate is fun.
I'd like to introduce everyone to my good friend Damerrich, the Lawful Good empyreal lord of executions, responsibility, and judiciousness. What is an execution? Killing a condemned, guilty prisoner, who is presumably helpless. What were the 7 NPCs in the OP's example? People sleeping in a thieves' guild with weapons. What sort of people would sleep in a thieves' guild with weapons? It's reasonable to assume, thieves. Bad people who do bad things to innocent people.
My good buddy Damerrich would pat those PCs on the back for their judicious action. 50 points to Gryffindor and the forces of Lawful Good. If you really wanna split hairs, then perhaps the PCs should tie them up, wake them up, and prove beyond a shadow of a reasonable doubt that the NPCs are bad guys before lopping their heads off.
"What is an execution? Killing a condemned, guilty prisoner, who is presumably helpless."
Usually an execution happens after you are judged and then sentenced to death.
If the PC's feel they can circumvent fair trial, and deliver justice on their own account, that sounds more lawful evil, than anything.
After all, they might be thieves. 95% chance that they are thieves. However, who is to say that their individual actions incur a death penalty?
Where does it say that murder is evil?This is evil. Evil, evil, evil. And unlawful, too (though arguably could be chaotic or neutral).
Murder. Definitely evil. By game definitions and by dictionary definitions.
Murder: to kill (a human being) unlawfully and with premeditated malice
Malicious: intentionally harmful; spiteful; motivated by wrongful, vicious, or mischievous purposes
Evil: morally wrong or bad; immoral; wicked
It all ties together.
The problem with dictionary and "evil" is that evil is a very subjective word, usually with a religious context and widely varying definitions.
Pathfinder is not so murky:
[quote = SRD, Alignments]Good implies altruism, respect for life...
Evil implies hurting, oppressing, and killing others...
It's right there in the SRD in black and white. The second characteristic of good is "respect for life" and the third characteristic of evil is "killing others".
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I think that arguing with someone who doesn't think murder is evil is both futile and possibly unwise. I'll just slowly back away...